Part 5, Chapter XXXIX.
Divided!
“Again I called, and he could not come.”
During the weeks that were so comfortless and disturbed at Redhurst, Violante’s school-life went on, on the whole, peacefully; but, still, with various ups and downs of feeling—fits of longing for Rosa, of loneliness and discouragement; times when she could not learn her lessons nor interest herself in the little trifles that interested her companions. Yet she never thought of giving in and going away from Oxley Manor. When she was unhappy she dreaded lest Rosa should discover it. All the interest of life lay close at hand—here anything might happen, elsewhere the scene was closed. Not that Violante gave herself this reason for her perseverance. No; she could not bear to foil a second time; and Miss Florence was so kind to her, she was learning to bear the little rubs of life. So she mused one soft, line morning, as she stood leaning out of the window of the little upstairs class-room, where she superintended the girls’ practising. As she waited for her pupils she thought to herself that she was growing brave and sensible—more like Rosa—who let nothing interfere with her work.
And then, looking half-expectantly down the road, she saw a man come by on horseback, riding slowly, and looking straight before him, upright and grave. She knew—she saw—he did neither; and, with a sudden impulse, she leant far out of the window and pulled the little bunch of violets from her dress and threw them to him, then darted back behind the curtain. And, as he started, the violets fell down in the dust; and she saw him laugh and ride on and pass her flowers by. Violante could almost have thrown herself out of the window too, in her agony of shame and disappointment. She could not tell whether Hugh knew that she was at Oxley Manor or not—surely he had not intended to repulse her! If he would but smile at her, speak to her!
“If you please, signorina, it’s a quarter to ten.”
Violante turned round to encounter a small fat-fingered child in a pinafore, and sat counting, “One, two, three, four,” and mechanically checking wrong notes, as she wondered if he would look up next time that he rode by. When Miss Venning observed shortly afterwards that she thought it would be more convenient if the history classes preceded the practising, which need not then begin till eleven, she little knew what springs she touched. By one accident and another Violante did not see Hugh again for a long time; but she did once or twice encounter Arthur when in company with Florence, and, therefore, her walks were haunted by a sense of possibility. She also occasionally heard Mr Crichton spoken of at meal-times as an authority in local matters under discussion, and gathered that his opinion was considered important, and that his judgment was generally supposed to be severe. It so happened that at this time the population of Oxley was convulsed with excitement as to various public improvements then under discussion. There was a talk of a new branch line of rail between Fordham and Oxley, and the direction that this was to take involved local interests of the most incompatible description. Some new gas-works were about to be set up by an enterprising company, and one of the sites proposed was a field a great deal nearer Oxley Manor than Miss Venning thought to be pleasant or profitable for her school. As this field belonged to a certain charity, long ago bequeathed, it was thought that the interests of the poor of Oxley would induce the trustees to dispose of it for a high price to the gas-works.
Miss Venning observed that she was not a person to be put upon without a reason, and that she should represent the matter in the proper quarters.
“If you mean Hugh Crichton,” said Clarissa, “you may represent it, and he will do exactly what he has already decided upon.”
“Well, my dear, I shall take care that he has the proper information on which to decide; so I shall ask him to call, and show him the field from the windows, so that he can judge for himself.”
So the tones that were associated for Violante with music and flowers, tenderness and love, first fell on her ears to the following effect:
“But you are aware, Miss Venning, that the gas-works must be somewhere? That field is very convenient for them, and I really think it is too far off to cause you any annoyance.”
“Now, Hugh, I’ll thank you just to step into the little school-room and look out of window. No, you’ll not disturb the girls. Never mind them.”
Violante rose up with her companions as Miss Venning entered. She stood a little behind the others, and could suppose that Hugh did not see her, as he walked up to the window and looked, or pretended to look out.
“It’s a very healthy situation,” he said, vaguely.
“Healthy! And, pray, what consequence can it be to gas-works if they are healthy or not? They would spoil my view; and, really, between them and the railroad, the place won’t be worth living in much longer.”
“It doesn’t rest with me, you know, Miss Venning. Can you suggest a better situation?”
“I should place them the other side of the town,” said Miss Venning, with decision, “out towards Blackwood.”
“Yes,” said Hugh, still staring out of the window and hearing nothing.
It may seem a somewhat contemptible state of mind to record; but Hugh was overpowered by a sense of embarrassment, of utter uncertainty as to what to do, as to how to greet her. Why should he evade the previous acquaintance acknowledged by James and Arthur? And yet he felt there was but one way in which he could speak to her. As he half turned, and hesitated as he talked confusedly to Miss Venning, the class of girls filed out of the room. Violante passed him. All the short-lived fire of her nature was roused by his hesitation. She gave him no glance of appealing timidity or hopeless love. She flung up her head and looked at him with an indignation such as he had never dreamt of seeing in her soft eyes, and, in answer to his confused bow, she made the slightest of curtseys and walked out of the room.
“You have met Mr Crichton?” said Clarissa, who had been with the class.
“Yes, Miss Clarissa, at my father’s classes, but I have no acquaintance with him. It was Mr Spencer who met us at Caletto. Come, Katie—come, Agnes. Your exercises have too many faults. I shall scold.” And she sat down and took up her pen, and felt for the moment as if she could defy every turn of fortune. Clarissa looked at her, and went back to where Hugh, confused and wretched, was talking at random, having heard Violante’s parting shot. She had turned the tables on him; she was no vision, no holiday dream, as he had sometimes called her; but a living woman, first misjudged and then neglected. He might be right and self-denying, might be giving up his greatest good for the sake of others; but she was wronged, and she had made him feel it.
“I have given it all up!—all—to make some slight atonement for the wrong I have done,” he thought; “and I must seem a sneak and a scoundrel to myself. How little they know! What a lie life is! If I were a boy I’d run away to sea and have done with it. And I must go this eternal round of committees and business—and—gas-works—” with passionate impatience at the momentary matter in hand, as he hurried away, having wildly pledged himself to vote for the locating of the gas-works in the midst of Lord Lidford’s park at Blackwood.
He was stung to the very quick by Violante’s anger, yet he had made up his mind that all should be at an end between them, and he had too much self-respect to try “to make the worse appear the better reason,” and to offer her any explanation, since he withheld the one that was her due. Perhaps, the very renewal of regret that the sight of her face—more womanly and more beautiful than when he had left her—caused him was a sort of support, as it strengthened the sense of self-sacrifice. But he was sufficiently upset and perturbed by what had passed to forget one or two important pieces of business, and was forced to accept Arthur’s help in hastily repairing his neglect, though he had begun the day by resolving that he would not let much work fall on his cousin when the soft spring weather made him look so pale and languid.
With Violante anger was a short-lived passion, and an hour had not passed before she longed to recall her scornful words and look, before she was making a hundred excuses for her lover. The sight of Hugh in his own place affected her as it, doubtless, had, however unconsciously, affected him. She felt miles farther away from him here in his own town than among the flowers of Italy. The pleasant novelty around her was beginning to lose its effect; she began to grow scared and stupid, to be again the little helpless Violante of Civita Bella.
One afternoon—it was a half-holiday—Miss Florence came sweeping into the school-room, penetrating it like a fresh sunny wind, darting into its corners, touching the sports, employments, humours of all its inhabitants, criticising a drawing, suggesting a book, adjusting a little quarrel; fresh currents of air seemed to follow her bright flaxen head as she whisked about till she beheld Violante standing by herself in the window and looking very disconsolate.
“Why, signorina, what’s the matter?”
“I am so sorry, Miss Florence.”
“Sorry, what for?”
“La signora is displeased with me.”
“My sister? Is she? Why, what have you been doing?”
Violante blushed, and with much confusion answered that they had been reading English poetry, and something in it made her cry. “Only a little, Miss Florence,” but the girls laughed and she had burst into tears, and Miss Venning had told her she ought to command her feelings better.
“Well, don’t let them get the better of you now,” said Flossy. “What was this dreadfully touching poem?”
“It was a play called Hamlet, Miss Florence, and he was angry with the girl who loved him.”
“The sentiment was not sufficiently disguised, as our old English teacher used to say,” said Flossy, laughing heartily. “Did you feel as if you might act Ophelia?”
“Signorina, it seemed too true for acting. It is not like an opera. It might be oneself. But I should not have cried at it.”
“No. School-girls don’t like sentiment. But, come, it doesn’t signify. My sisters are out. Come into the drawing-room and have some tea with me; and I want to sing something to you and ask your advice.” Violante followed gladly into the cheerful drawing-room, with its sunny flowery windows, and its look of feminine pleasantness. She sat down in a low easy chair and rested passively. She was tired of her own emotions; she wanted Rosa. Miss Florence was kind, and bright, and strong, but she did not dare to creep into her arms and lay her head on her shoulder—she did not dare even to cry over her troubles. Excellent discipline, doubtless, but, perhaps, the hardest that could have been devised for so dependent a creature.
“Miss Florence,” she said, after a minute; “did Hamlet ever forgive Ophelia?”
“Why, don’t you know? She went mad and drowned herself,” said Flossy, cheerfully.
“I wonder how miserable anyone must be before they go mad!”
“Why,” said Florence, as she sat down and began to knit some bright wools together, quite ready for a lively discussion on the characters of the play. “I suppose no one would who had a well-balanced mind to begin with.”
“I am sure Rosa would not,” said Violante, thoughtfully.
“No, your sister looks like the last person to do anything so silly,” said Flossy, laughing.
“But when there are long years, and friends are cruel, and one has a hard fate, and there is nothing in the world that could happen to set it right—”
The deep, passionate trouble in her voice made Florence look up surprised: she was constantly puzzled by the mixture of ignorance and experience in this girl whose life had been so unlike her own.
“You know, Violante,” she said, “we are Christians, and so we must not despair.” Violante looked perplexed and thoughtful; yet the words had a meaning for her, for these weeks had been in one respect a period of development. She had from the first taken very kindly to the religious practices which were observed at Oxley Manor, and set to work to cure her deficiency in religious knowledge. Whether because she thought it was English, or because she wished to imitate Flossy, or from some blessed instinct leading her to what was for her good, she showed a love for going to church and for all sorts of Church teaching which the Miss Vennings were half-inclined to ascribe to novelty only. Many of the girls were under preparation for Confirmation, and she acquiesced eagerly in the suggestion that she should join their number. They were carefully taught by the Oxley clergy; and Flossy, who was an enthusiastic Sunday-school teacher, had delighted in explaining difficulties and doctrines to the little Italian. How much Violante comprehended intellectually may be doubtful, but she began to see better reasons for trying to do what was distasteful than the fear of being scolded, began to have some notion of abstract duties. This she was carefully taught; but it was surely no human words, but the blessing of God on her innocent humble spirit, that opened her loving heart to a new and Divine love. There dawned upon her the thought of a Friend who was with her when Rosa was away, who loved her when Hugh was cold. It was but a dim conception, but it had capabilities of growth. Hymns and texts were something more than words, and her endeavours to fulfil these new requirements had something of the fervour of enthusiasm. She used to forget the new comfort, let it be swept away in the tumult of exciting feeling; but when the thought came back it was like Rosa’s kiss when she was in trouble and disgrace. Flossy’s hint recalled it now, and she said, with childish directness:
“Because our Saviour loves us. Ah! I love Him very much!”
There was something in the soft, earnest naïveté that made the words touching and sweet even to the English Florence, with whom reverence and reality meant reserve, and who, however she had felt, would have thought such an avowal presumptuous.
“Then, you must try to be good, Violante,” she said, rather repressively.
“Yes,” said Violante, “and then He will be pleased with me.”
Florence had taught this truth hundreds of times; but she had never heard it thus echoed and claimed; and it came with a new force, as the Bible words are said to do when read in a strange language.